Business
by: Chauncey Alcorn, CNN Business
Posted:
Feb 20, 2021 / 08:32 PM EST
(CNN) Kamala Harris isn’t the only Black woman making history in 2021.
The January 20 swearing-in of the nation’s first woman, Black and southeast Asian vice president came at a pivotal moment for Black women in the business world, which up until recently has failed miserably to increase the number of Black executives male and female in its ranks.
In 2018, only 3.3% of all US corporate executive and senior leadership positions were filled by Black people. Not much has changed since then, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
To date, there have been only 19 Black CEOs 17 men and two women in the entire history of the list, which was first published in Fortune magazine in 1955. Incoming Walgreen’s CEO Rosalind Brewer will be added on March 15, when she becomes just the third Black woman to serve as a Fortune 500 CEO.